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Small Business Startup Tips
Step 1 Let the State and Federal government recognize your business.
Let’s start with the State of Federal requirements. Depending on the size of your company, you will need to know how you will handle state and federal taxes. I recommend you look at your states requirements for starting a business before beginning. There you will find instructions on how to pick a company name, and how to incorporate your business. Next, you have to decide if you will be a sole proprietor, limited liability company (LLC), S Corp or C Corp. Consider the following:
• The size of your Business.
• Number of Employees
• Projected Income.
The most popular business types are LLC and S Corp. The main differences between the two are how you will be taxed. With an LLC, you will be taxed twice, but the income you earn can go directed to your personal account. LLC’s are easier to start and maintain as well. With an S Cop, it takes a bit more steps to start and maintain for taxes, but you are taxed only once. You as an individual, will have to take a paycheck from the S Corp as an employee. You cannot pocket all of your earned income, because it must go to the business first.
Step 2 The scope of the business.
Lets start to get your company of some personality and purpose. This is the part when you have to sit down and start to write some documentation. You will need to come up with your company Mission, Mantra, your competition and business model. Your mission statement will formally sum up your companies values and goals. Your company mantra is a short sentence describing what the business will actually be doing. Now these will change throughout your time running the business, especially when you’re starting out. However, it’s good to put something in writing first, then change it when needed.
You really do need to find out who your competition is. Not only is this good for your business planning, but it gets you thinking about how you will compete in the business market. This will also help you find your niche and customer base. Now during this process is it recommended to come up with a exit strategy. This is not to assume your business will fail, but you need proper steps to track and close out accounts or pay off investors, employees and stake holders.
Step 3 Lets talk about cash flow.
Now that you have your mission statement and business plan, you want to know how to run your business financially. Things you must consider are your credit score, your investors, and any starting capital. Now there are some businesses that are started without any starting capital. This is called bootstrapping. Basically business profit will be it’s future funding. This assumes you don’t have many expenses, and you will have to start off very financially slim. It’s also good at this point to consider your financial projections for the year or for a couple years. I recommend using a free financial software planner to plan out your upcoming expenses effectively. You don’t want to have no money at the end of the year. This is also the point where you met consider keeping your 9-to-5 job to help fund your business. However, this will limit the time you have to run your business so you have to choose wisely.
Step 4 Market your business.
If you thought the other steps were difficulty, this step is probably even harder. Now we will discuss how to promote your business and how to get customers aware of your business. If you have start-up cost and capital on hand, you’ll want to think about sales and marketing. You can plan on having an in house Sales and Marketing Department, outsource your sales team.
However, if you don’t have much capital, you will want to do this as inexpensively as possible. This could be done by creating a professional website, printing brochures and business cards, and hitting the pavement and networking. If you are unfamiliar with designing a website, I highly recommend hiring a professional to do so. Companies like Pulsar Strategies, Inc. specialize in creating websites that meat Search Engine Optimization standards. This means your website will show higher in a Google search without any additional cost. You can also use Google Ads to run campaigns that will show your website at the top of searches. This requires some financial planning because you have to bid for the top spots against other companies. Companies like Pulsar Strategies, Inc. can assist you in creating the best keyword combination and Ads to win bids at a lower cost. Google ads is great because it allows you to set a daily or monthly price limit. This is perfect for your financial planning.
You also need to create your logo and your branding. These will look good on your business cards and brochures.
To place your marketing brochures. find areas where people congregate most and are killing time. Of course you’ll have to get permission from the business where you are leaving the items. Also nothing beats going out two local businesses and speaking with people. I recommend signing up for and attending your local chambers of commerce.
Conclusion:
Starting a business there’s an exciting Venture and can be very fun but please follow these 4 steps they’ll make sure your experience is more enjoyable. Starting a business can be very hard in the long run and there will be ups and downs. Way to get through the roadblocks you come across.